Fellow J109 Officers, Fleet Captains and Class Members,
As you may be aware ISAF changed its categorization of sailors this year to eliminate the Category 2 designation. As such, sailors are now considered to be Category 1 (amateur) or Category 3 (professional). This doesn’t affect our class rules as we only had limitations on the number of Cat 3’s that can be aboard during a class event, it may affect the status of some of your crew members. I would strongly encourage you to have crew members clarify their classification status well in advance of any regatta where crew lists need to be submitted and verified against the ISAF Sailor database as formerly Category 2 sailors may have been designated Category 3s. If that is the case, and they don’t believe they have been properly classified they will need to contact ISAF and review their status. Obviously if a former Category 2 sailor is designated a Category 1 there won’t be a problem.
The document from ISAF designed to assist race committees and classes in setting out crew restrictions is available in the Class Documents folder.
Please circulate this news to your Fleet members to make sure they are aware of the change in the ISAF classifications. Please have anyone contact me if they have any questions. If I don’t know the answer I will raise the question with ISAF.
I’d like to wish all of you best wishes for a successful (and safe!) 2010 sailing season.
Best regards,
Rick Lyall
